ower by setting the Scotch King
at liberty, had been compelled by the general sympathy of the Scots with
France to send a force under his son the Earl of Buchan to serve against
the English. The service which they did in that battle was so great that
the Earl of Buchan was created, by the Dauphin, constable of France.

Again Henry crossed the sea with a new army, having borrowed large sums
for the expenses of the expedition. Before he left England he made a
private treaty with his prisoner King James of Scotland, promising to
let him return to his country after the campaign in France on certain
specified conditions, among which it was agreed that he should take the
command of a body of troops in aid of the English. James had accompanied
him in his last campaign, and Henry had endeavored to make use of his
authority to forbid the Scots in France from taking part in the war, but
they had refused to acknowledge themselves bound to a king who was a
captive.

By this agreement, however, Henry obtained real assistance and
cooperation from his prisoner, whom he employed, in concert with the
Duke of Gloucester, in the siege of Dreux, which very soon surrendered.
He himself meanwhile marched toward the Loire to meet the Dauphin, and
took Beaugency; then, returning northward, first reduced Villeneuve on
the Yonne, and afterward laid siege to Meaux on the Marne. The latter
place held out for seven months, and while Henry lay before it he
received intelligence that his Queen had borne him a son at Windsor, who
was christened Henry.

The city of Meaux surrendered on May 10, 1422. The Governor, a man who
had been guilty of great cruelties, was beheaded, and his head and body
were suspended from a tree on which he himself had caused a number of
people to be hanged as adherents of the Duke of Burgundy. Henry was now
master of the greater part of the North of France, and his Queen came
over from England to join him, with reenforcements under his brother the
Duke of Bedford. But he was not permitted to rest; for the Dauphin,
having taken from his ally the Duke of Burgundy the town of La Charte on
the Loire, proceeded to lay siege to Cosne, and, Philip having applied
to Henry for assistance, he sent forward the Duke of Bedford with his
army, intending shortly to follow himself. This demonstration was
sufficient. The Dauphin felt that he was too weak to contend with the
united English and Burgundian forces, and he withdrew from the siege